The Self-Taught Gardener Who Sketched the Crystal Palace on a Blotting-Paper Note During a Railway Board Meeting in 1850
Joseph Paxton was a gardener at Chatsworth House when he produced the winning Crystal Palace design in nine days. He had no formal architectural training. The 92,000-square-metre glass-and-iron structure that housed the 1851 Great Exhibition was the largest enclosed space in the world when it opened.
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